All-Purpose Pink: Jim Nutt

Color Wheel is a series in which we identify a trending color in art, and post a daily image that illustrates its popularity. This week’s color is all-purpose pink.

After seeing Karl Wirsum (associated with the Hairy Who) and his delightful paintings at Derek Eller this past November, I’ve spent some time looking at and thinking about artists associated with that group. (Jim Nutt’s one of them, although like many a good art student from Chicago, I learned on numerous occasions that the Hairy Who was no unified group; these were just friends who showed together.)

What’s so great about the pink in this painting is that it’s the same color of the shower tiles and the floating body parts, letting you imagine strange associations between the two. Overall it’s a surreal painting, and not by accident. Thanks to the bowler hats in this painting, there’s an obvious reference to that incredibly well-known Surrealist Magritte.